Game #889: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Mutants in Manhattan(Playstation 4)

  Man, we really need more new TMNT games...

 There's one thing I never understood, and that's why this game was so poorly received. After playing it again on superior hardware, I'll admit I may have been a bit overly enthusiastic about it. But only a bit. I won't go over the basics of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan because this is pretty much the same game, bur rather on how I felt playing it again.

 Well, for starters, it's rather disappointing how even though this game is running on a stronger system ,the framerate is still capped at 30. A very steady 30, but 30 nonetheless. There's no offline multiplayer on this system either, which is just criminal for a TMNT game.

 I may finally be able to somewhat understand why the game was so poorly received. While it's a beat'em up, it went for a somewhat random approach. Each level will task you with a few random, mini missions. And... yeah, not all of them are equally fun, particularly if you are playing with the brain dead AI. If the game was only made up of these segments, then I'd agree, it'd be a rather dull game.

 But man, the boss fights!! The boss fights are amazing. The game feels incredibly kinetic, you can have all four turtles pummeling on the same big bad boss at the same time. And you're given so many different tools to deal with bosses. A block that runs on a timer, parrying or countering, all depending on how you time the R2 button. It feels very satisfying to land the counters and parries. Not all Super moves are equally useful, albeit most grant invulnerability frames when using them, but if you find a set up that works for you just stick to it. I love being able to customize each turtle. You go for the safe and unimaginative road and just equip all the turtles with the same skills, the ones you think are the best.... or you can set up each turtle with different skills in order to have different roles. It's not too deep, as each character only has two unique skills, but hey, I think it's a decent system.

 It's not the best TMNT game, and I'll admit some of its elements can be rather dull, but when the game is at its best it's simply sublime. On most games, like Megaman or DMC, I always hate when they have a boss rush at the end. In this game, the boss rush stage was my favorite. I'd really be all up for Platinum to expand upon this concept, even if they forgo the license. But it'd be better if they kept it.

 7.0